Penn State Football: Lift For Life Event Draws Crowd For Great Cause

The Penn State football team took the lacrosse fields next to Beaver Stadium this Saturday morning for the annual Lift For Life event held by the Penn State chapter of Uplifting Athletes.

Hundreds of fans cheered them on from the stands as the Nittany Lions battled in feats of strength pitting the offense and defense against each other.

While every event was an impressive sight to see, Penn State tight end Jesse James set the bar high with 11 dead lifts at 500 pounds and 27 bench press reps at 225 pounds.

As always the day ended with a massive tug-of-war with offensive players facing off against defensive players. To cap it all off the newest Nittany Lion freshmen faced off in the tug-of-war which boiled over into a full team battle for the final victory of the day.

Children also took part in a mini-combine event during the morning that was run by Penn State freshman football players.

Penn State did say that fans have purchased over $28,000 worth of the Iron Lion t-shirts with all of the money going to Uplifting Athletes and its fight against Kidney Cancer. The total for all Uplifting Athlete fundraisers brought the 12-year total to just shy of $1 million although the $133,596 raised was a record for the event.

Sabrina Syeda and Taslima Zaman, both chemical engineering graduate students at Penn State from Bangladesh, sat in the Saturday afternoon sun on Heister Street sketching a blooming sun in chalk on the street.

Their drawing was a single square in a tapestry of street drawings, all drawn by different visitors to the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts. Vivid scenes in neon pastels spread acro